Background:
Job stress is associated with adverse health effects. The present study was conducted toexamine the association between sense of coherence (SOC), as advocated by Antonovsky,and psychological responses to job stressors among Japanese workers.
Methods:
A self-administered questionnaire containing a Japanese version of the 13-item SOC scale,the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire, and a self-rated health item were distributed to 1968workers in X prefecture. Anonymous responses were recovered by postal mail.
Results:
Complete responses were received from 299 workers (response rate 15.2%, 191 males and108 females) who consented to participate in the study. Participants were 186 office clerks,38 sales representatives, 22 technical engineers, 16 service trade workers, eight informationprocessing workers, eight technical experts, and 21 other workers of various types. SOCscores were associated with age, self-rated health, job title, and marriage status. According toregression analyses stratified by gender, SOC was inversely associated with tension, fatigue,anxiety, depression and subjective symptoms in males, and tension, depression and subjectivesymptoms in females. SOC was positively associated with vigor in both males and females.
Conclusions:
Having a strong SOC may reduce worker’s negative job stress responses and increase theirvigor. Longitudinal studies are required to confirm this finding.